By Mark K. Olson. John Wesley’s famous “warmed heart” at a society meeting on Aldersgate Street, London, in May 1738 has been interpreted in different ways by scholars and historians over the past 250 years. This article is an excerpt from my book Wesley and Aldersgate: Interpreting Conversion Narratives (Routledge, 2018), that explores Wesley’s interpretation of the event over the course of his lifetime. The excerpt below is taken from chapter three.
Wesley’s Testimony
The record of John Wesley’s Aldersgate experience on May 24, 1738, is found in his Journal. This is the only detailed account Wesley ever gave of what transpired on that evening. The available evidence suggests this account was likely written down that evening, so its importance for ascertaining Wesley’s initial impressions is evident. The Journal account was published five times during Wesley’s lifetime (1740, 1743, 1765, 1774, 1775), so that it remains the primary source for determining Wesley’s interpretation of what transpired.
It is notable that Wesley’s testimony that evening consists of a single paragraph. Even with its iconic status as a conversion account, few have taken the time to critically examine it in detail, and to my knowledge no scholar has investigated its language to clarify Wesley’s intent. Although only three sentences in length, the core testimony is a carefully crafted statement in which each sentence serves a distinct purpose that seamlessly carries the reader forward from setting to event to interpretation:
Setting: “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans.”
Event: “About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed.”
Interpretation: “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”[1]
Regarding the circumstances of the society meeting, scholars have recognized its Moravian character.[2] Wesley’s attitude of unwillingness conveyed to his readers that what followed was not something he manufactured. Historians have noted that Martin Luther’s Preface had become by the eighteenth century the “classical text for evangelical conversion;” thereby suggesting this was the topic of discussion that night.[3] Also, this was not Wesley’s first exposure to Luther’s Preface and its teaching on salvation by faith. He read the section where Luther describes saving faith the prior month in Philip Spener’s Pia Desideria.
In Luther’s explanation of key terms and concepts in the Book of Romans, he focused more on imparted rather than imputed righteousness.[4] Beginning with God’s law, Luther argued that the sinner attempts to fulfil God’s law by works, either through fear of punishment or hope of reward, but fails because their heart is not in it. The sinner does not freely love God or his law since they are sinful at heart. For God’s law is spiritual and can be fulfilled only by the Holy Spirit imparting a genuine love for God and his truth.[5] But the Spirit is received through faith in Christ and in the merits of his death. So, for Luther the root issue was unbelief and its remedy a living faith in Christ: “Faith, however, is a divine work in us which changes us and makes us to be born anew of God, John 1:12-13. It kills the old Adam and makes altogether different men, in heart and spirit and mind and powers; and it brings with it the Holy Spirit.”[6] Such faith generates a desire within the heart to do good works and in this way fulfils the law of God.[7]
It was at this approximate point in the reading when Wesley felt his “heart strangely warmed.”[8] At present it cannot be determined whether the warmth was physiological, psychological, or both. Other evangelical conversion narratives from the period confirm that such phenomena were common and expected, especially in the hearing of the evangelical message of salvation.[9] That Wesley was seeking a perceptible (felt)assurance is evident from what he told James Hutton less than a month earlier, “This thing I do: I still follow after, if haply I may attain faith. I preach it to all, that at length I may feel it.”[10] Even more direct, on a couple of occasions Wesley cited his lack of feeling as primary evidence for his lack of saving faith.[11] Behind this expectation for evidence was Wesley’s empirical approach to matters of faith and knowledge. Scholars have long noted his Lockean viewpoint, though he departed from Locke on faith as a spiritual sense.[12] So the strange warmth was an important element of his experience that evening.
What should arrest our attention is the last sentence, for it represents Wesley’s interpretation of his experience that evening. In other words, this is what the “strangely warmed” heart signified to him. Wesley stated that he received assurance, so this was a core element of his experience. But he used three phrases to explain what he was assured of that evening:
“Trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.”
“Taken away my sins, even mine.”
“Saved me from the law of sin and death.”
At this point we must not assume Wesley’s intent by interjecting our own definition of the three phrases. As Maddox noted, this has been a pattern in past studies of Aldersgate.[13] Instead, the meaning of each phrase should be determined by its usage elsewhere in the Wesley corpus. This includes awareness of any shifts in his meaning over time.
Trust in Christ, Christ Alone for Salvation
When Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed,” he testified that he did “trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation.”[14] While this exact phrase is not found elsewhere in his writings, similar phrases and wording are often used.[15] Some examples include “full reliance on the blood of Christ,” “trust in the blood of Christ alone,” “sure trust and confidence that Christ died for my sins,” and his often quoted definition of saving faith from the Anglican Homilies, “a sure trust and confidence in God, that through the merits of Christ my sins are forgiven, and I reconciled to the favour of God.”[16] Yet Wesley’s intent in the above phrase becomes more evident by what he stated earlier in the Memorandum that he resolved to seek “for this very thing, justifying, saving faith, a full reliance on the blood of Christ shed for me; a trust in him as my Christ, as my sole justification, sanctification, and redemption.”[17] So when Wesley felt the unusual warmth in his heart, he simultaneously felt the conviction that he did trust in Christ and in his atoning death for justification, sanctification, and redemption.[18]
Still, there is more to consider about the words “Christ alone.” In the sermons Salvation by Faith and “The Marks of the New Birth” Wesley taught that no one can trust in the saving work of Christ until they first renounce all dependence on their own good works and righteousness.[19] So, what Wesley received on the evening of 24 May was more than an assurance of trust in Christ for salvation, he also felt the conviction that he no longer relied on his own righteousness to make himself acceptable to God.[20] This had been a sticking-point with Peter Böhler and the Moravians who saw the high church emphasis on the means of grace as nothing less than salvation by works.[21] While Wesley would later part ways with the Moravians over the role of the means of grace in the process of salvation, after Aldersgate he never wavered on the fundamental point that a seeker must first renounce all reliance on their own righteousness before they can have saving faith in Christ.[22] Aldersgate, therefore, signified for Wesley that he no longer trusted in his own righteousness but in ‘Christ alone’ for his acceptance with God.
Taken Away My Sins, Even Mine
The phrase comes from John the Baptist’s profession of Christ as the “Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world,” and appears in many conversion narratives in Wesley’s Journal and in other contemporary accounts.[23] Its widespread usage among early evangelicals indicates the phrase was standard conversion terminology in the eighteenth century. Within the Journal the phrase is always linked to a perceptible assurance of justification and salvation in Christ. For instance, a couple of months before Aldersgate Wesley proclaimed the Gospel to a condemned criminal who professed, “I am now ready to die. I know Christ has taken away my sins, and there is no more condemnation for me.”’[24] Eight years later Wesley had the following conversation with a child:
“I asked her abruptly, ‘Do you love God?’ She said, ‘Yes, I do love him with all my heart.’ I said, ‘Why do you love him?’ She answered, ‘Because he has saved me.’ I asked, ‘How has he saved you?’ She replied, ‘He has taken away my sins.’ I said, ‘How do you know that?’ She answered, ‘He told me himself on Saturday, Thy sins are forgiven thee.And I believe him. And I pray to him without a book. I was afraid to die. But now I am not afraid to die. For if I die I shall go to him.’”[25]
From these two examples we learn the phrase meant to receive an assurance of forgiveness and salvation, setting a person free from condemnation.[26] Consequently, these new believers overcame their fear of death. In Wesley’s case, it was his fear of death that awakened him to the realization that his faith was salvifically deficient.[27] This led him to listen to a new message of salvation grounded on the atonement of Christ. In his Explanatory Notes on John 1:29,Wesley linked the words “taketh away” to Christ’s atonement for sin.[28] The phrase also appears in several sermons and in each instance refers an assurance of justification through faith in the atonement of Christ.[29] To cite a couple of examples:
“Hast thou faith in his blood? Believest thou the Lamb of God hath taken away thy sins, and cast them as a stone into the depths of the sea? That he hath blotted out the handwriting that was against thee, taking it out of the way, nailing it to his cross? Hast thou indeed redemption through his blood, even the remission of thy sins?”[30]
“Thus ‘look unto Jesus!’ There is ‘the Lamb of God, who taketh away thy sins!’ Plead no works, no righteousness of thine own . . . Plead thou singly the blood of the covenant, the ransom paid for thy proud, stubborn, sinful soul.”[31]
From its usage elsewhere we can have confidence what the phrase meant in his core testimony: Wesley received an assurance that his sins were atoned for and he now stood justified before God. This part of his experience was later recalled in January 1739, “I received such a sense of the forgiveness of my sins as till then I never knew.”[32] Aldersgate signified that Wesley now had peace with God, having been “justified by faith.”[33]
Saved Me from the Law of Sin and Death
Of the three phrases this is possibly the most far reaching in what it reveals about Wesley’s interpretation. The phrase comes from Romans 8:2—”For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”—and expressed Wesley’s belief that at Aldersgate he experienced a deliverance from the power of sin, initiating him into a new spiritual state.
Throughout his adult life Wesley understood the phrases “law of sin” and “law of sin and death” to refer to the power of sin that brings captivity and bondage, leading to spiritual and eternal death. In a couple of pre-Aldersgate sermons Wesley linked the “law of sin and death” to our native depravity and the bondage it brings.[34] He further held that a full deliverance came only in the article of death. But in 1738 he began to proclaim a present deliverance from the “law of sin” and this led him to define the phrase more precisely. Commenting on Romans 7:23-25, Wesley elaborated on what Paul meant by the term “law”:
“‘But I see another law in my members,’ another constraining power, ‘warring against the law of my mind,’ or inward man, ‘and bringing me into captivity to the law’, or power, ‘of sin,’ dragging me as it were at my conqueror’s chariot-wheels into the very thing which my soul abhors. ‘O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!’ Who shall deliver me from this helpless, dying life; from this bondage of sin and misery!’”[35]
Here, the term “law” meant the enslaving power of sin.[36] Consequently, the “law of sin” signified a person living “under the law” or in the legal state. Like other early evangelicals, Wesley held there were three spiritual states: natural, legal, and evangelical. Whereas the natural state represented those who were unconcerned about their salvation, the legal state defined the person who “feels the burden he cannot shake off” due to the demands of God’s law, who “pants after liberty, power, and love, but remains in fear and bondage still.”[37] In contrast, the evangelical state described those who had found “favour in the sight of God” and received the “Spirit of adoption,” having been born again through faith in Christ.[38] Central to Wesley’s concept of the legal and evangelical states was his interpretation of Romans 7 and 8.[39] While Romans 7 was understood to describe the legal state and its bondage to sin, Romans 8 was interpreted to signify the evangelical state and its deliverance from sin. Sandwiched in-between was Romans 8:1-2, which referred to the moment of transition from the legal to the evangelical state. Wesley’s quotation of Romans 8:2 in his core testimony now becomes evident: Aldersgate was the moment when Wesley transitioned from the legal to the evangelical state, having been set free from the enslaving power of sin through the new birth.
Concluding Comments
So, what can be learned about Wesley’s experience on 24 May from his core testimony? The central event was when Wesley felt his heart “strangely warmed” as he listened to the gospel message of how God transforms a life through faith in Christ. In that moment he received an assurance in three areas—trust in Christ alone for salvation, the forgiveness of sins resulting in peace with God, and deliverance from the enslaving power of sin marking his transition into the evangelical state. Aldersgate, therefore, signified for Wesley his evangelical justification and new birth.
An equally important lesson is how Wesley’s core testimony has all the hallmarks of a conversion account. Note the key words and phrases: “change which God works in the heart . . . trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation . . . an assurance was given me . . . taken away my sin . . . saved me from the law of sin and death.” This was standard language of evangelical conversion in the eighteenth century. Consider the central themes: inward transformation, instantaneous moment, felt experience, trust in Christ for salvation, assurance of forgiveness, and deliverance from the rule of sin. Contrary to what some scholars have proposed, the terminology and themes of the core testimony demonstrate that Wesley considered Aldersgate his evangelical conversion.
Of particular interest is how Wesley modelled his testimony on Peter Böhler’s message. Böhler had taught that the gift of justifying, saving faith in Christ was received in an instant, and was accompanied with an assurance of forgiveness and a freedom from sin’s dominion.[40] This became the ordo testimonii in Wesley’s account: he first shared how God touched his heart in an instant, inspiring his profession of faith in Christ alone for salvation, followed with an assurance of the same two fruits that Böhler listed. By structuring his testimony after Böhler’s message, Wesley conveyed to his readers that Aldersgate was his evangelical conversion.
The next article will explore Wesley’s Aldersgate Memorandum.
[1] Works, 18:249-50, emphasis his.In the original edition (1738) a colon, and not a comma, was inserted after the phrase ‘Christ alone for salvation’. Paul Ramsey explained that in the eighteenth century the colon was used to ‘introduce into a sentence a pause of the greatest duration or with the highest sense of finality short of the period’. The Works of Jonathan Edwards: Freedom of the Will, vol. 1 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 126. By inserting a pause at this point in his testimony, JW sought to accent the importance of what he said before and after the colon.
[2] Podmore, Moravian Church in England, 42; Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 1:229, 236, 263; Ward, ed. Works, 18:249 n 75. Another piece of evidence was that the edition of Luther’s ‘preface’ read that night was in German. Dean Drayton, ‘Wesley at Aldersgate and the Discovery of a German New Testament’, Aldersgate Papers vol. 9 (September 2011), 67-91.
[3] Ward, Early Evangelicalism, 43.
[4] Bernard Lohse pointed out that this aspect of Luther’s doctrine of justification was for a long time not ‘sufficiently appreciated’. Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 262.
[5] Luther referred to Romans 7:14 when he spoke of God’s law as spiritual.
[6] Lull and Russell. Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 79. The preface was written in 1522.
[7] Lull and Russell, Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 78, 79.
[8] Since this is the only place in the Preface where Luther described the ‘change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ’, and JW stated it was ‘while [Luther] was describing’ this change that his heart was unusually warmed, it follows this was the moment when he had his experience. Lutheran and Moravian scholars agree. See M. Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 1:263; Dreyer, Genesis of Methodism, 35.
[9] Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 194-97.
[10] JWL, 28 April 1738 (Works,25:537, emphasis his).
[11] JWJ, 1 February, 24 May 1738 (Works, 18:216, 248).
[12] Heitzenrater, Mirror and Memory, 109; Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 386.
[13] Maddox, ‘A Tradition History’, 134.
[14] JW often defined faith as an evidence or conviction. An Earnest Appeal §6 (Works, 11:46). I would submit this was what the term ‘felt’ meant at this place in his testimony.
[15] Besides JW’s writings, similar wording is found in the Moravian testimonies recorded later in the second Journal. E.g. Christoph Demuth remembered his father telling his children, ‘“My dear children, let your whole trust be in the blood of Christ. Seek salvation in this, and in this alone”’ (Works, 18:289).
[16] Salvation by Faith I.5, III.2 (Works,1:121, 125); ‘Justification by Faith’ IV.2 (Works,1:194); JWJ, 1 February 1738 (Works, 18:215-16).
[17] Aldersgate Memorandum §12 (Works, 18:248, hereafter: AM).
[18] As we will see, in the spring of 1738 JW was seeking a faith that would sanctify as well as justify (Works,18:248-49).
[19] Salvation by Faith III.5 (Works, 1:127), ‘The Marks of the New Birth’ I.3 (Works, 1:418-19). The Moravians stressed the same point. Hans Neisser confessed, ‘I did not trust in him [Christ] only for acceptance with God’. JWJ, 11 August 1738 (Works, 18:286).
[20] This point is repeatedly made in the AM §§7, 8, 9, 10, 12 (Works, 18:246-48).
[21] Podmore, Moravian Church in England, 33, 41, 42; Schmidt, John Wesley: A Theological Biography, 1;229, 236.
[22] Cf. The Lord Our Righteousness II.11 (Works,1:458).
[23] John 1:29. Appearances in the Journal:JWJ, 27 March, 24 May, 11 August 1738, 9 May 1739, 18 March 1746, 28 November 1750, 1 June 1751, 13 June 1756, 4 March 1761, 17 June 1763, and 21 July 1767 (Works, 18:233, 250, 286; 19:57; 20:116, 370, 390; 21:59, 309, 418; 22:92). The phrase appears in the Cambuslang Revival. Keith Edward Beebe, ed. The McCulloch Examinations of the Cambuslang Revival (1742), 2 vols. (Woodbridge: Scottish Historical Society, 2013), 1:134, 193; and among the Moravians, JWJ, 11 August 1738 (Works, 18:286). Philip Doddridge also appealed to John 1:29 when discussing evangelical conversion. Jonathan M. Yeager, ed. Early Evangelicalism: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 120.
[24] JWJ, 23 March 1738 (Works,18:232-33).
[25] JWJ, 18 March 1746 (Works,20:116-17, emphasis mine).
[26] In JW’s 24 May letter he acknowledged feeling condemned (Works, 18:242).
[27] JWJ, 24 January 1738 (Works,18:211).
[28] John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983), n.p. (hereafter: ENNT)
[29] The Almost Christian II.9; ‘Justification by Faith’ III.2; ‘Upon our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount’, I, I.12; ‘Sermon on the Mount’, VIII, I.1; The End of Christ’s Coming II.6; The Duty of Reproving Our Neighbour III.12; On Visiting the Sick I.5; On Faith §3; Free Grace §21 (cf. Works, 1:141, 191, 482, 688; 2:480, 520; 3:389, 493, 553).
[30] The Almost Christian II.9 (Works, 1:141, emphasis his).
[31] ‘Justification by Faith’ IV.2 (Works, 1:199, emphasis his).
[32] JWJ, 4 January 1739 (Works,19:29).
[33] Romans 5:1. Following Aldersgate JW repeatedly stated he had peace with God. JWJ, 25 May, 6 June, 14 October 1738 (Works,18:252, 254; 19:18-19); JWL, 30 October, 22 November 1738 (Works, 25:576, 584).
[34] ‘The Image of God’ III.3 (Works,4:300), The Trouble and Rest of Good Men II.5 (Works,3:539-40).
[35] ‘The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption’ II.9 (Works,1:259, emphasis mine).
[36] The phrase ‘law of sin’ appears elsewhere: JWL, 14 May 1738 (Works, 25:541); A Further Appeal, Pt I, V. 10 (Works,11:148); ENNT, Rom. 7:4, 15; Doctrine of Original Sin Parts II and VI (Works,12:282, 284-85, 424); A Blow at the Root (Works, Jackson, 10:367).
[37] ‘The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption’ II.10 (Works,1:260).
[38] ‘The Spirit of Bondage and Adoption’ III.1, 4 (Works, 1:260-61).
[39] ENNT, Romans 7:5-8:4; Preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems (1740) §6 (Works, 13:43).
[40] JWJ 23 March, 22-23 April, 24 May 1738, AM §§11, 12 (Works, 18:232, 232-33, 247-48).
